The Republican presidential race has been turned on its head with a new poll yesterday suggesting that the Baptist minister Mike Huckabee has opened up a five-point lead in Iowa, where the nominating process begins on January 3.

The same survey in the Des Moines Register, widely regarded as the most reliable guide to the notoriously difficult-to-poll Iowa caucuses, also indicated that Barack Obama had edged ahead of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic contest. Although national opinion polls suggest that Mrs Clinton retains a substantial lead among Democrats and that Rudy Giuliani remains the front-runner for Republicans, the fast-changing picture in Iowa has injected fresh uncertainty into the fluid battle for the White House in 2008.

The Register’s poll showed that Mr Huckabee had increased his support since the previous such survey in October by 17 points to 29 per cent, compared with 24 per cent for Mitt Romney and 13 per cent for Mr Giuliani – who is waging a more limited campaign in Iowa. Mr Huckabee compared his candidacy yesterday to a bumblebee, which, he said, should of physics. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he said. “It’s about all those Americans who have been told they could not be what they have become.”

He has spent just $327,000 in Iowa, compared with the $7million invested by Mr Romney, who has been running TV advertisements hoping to establish a lead in the early contests.

Mr Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, appears to have won over much of the Religious Right. The poll shows him leading Mr Romney by a margin of 38 per cent to 22 per cent among born-again Christians, who account for half the likely caucus 17% goers. Mr Romney’s Mormon faith is a not be able to fly according to the laws concern for some Evangelical voters who regard it as a sect. In an ABC News interview yesterday, Mr Huckabee pointedly refused to say if his rival was a Christian.

Mr Romney, who has spent most of the past month trading shots with Mr Giuliani, is now beginning to turn his sights on Mr Huckabee. The wealthy businessman has pointed out that his rival lacks private sector experience and claims there is “not a dime’s worth of difference” between them on social conservative issues such as opposing abortion and gay marriage.

In the ABC interview, Mr Huckabee emerged largely unscathed from a series of tough questions about his record as Governor of Arkansas on immigration, tax and crime.

The wide-open nature of the Republican contest was underlined yesterday by the endorsement by the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper of John McCain, a candidate who was written off widely last summer but is staging a comeback in the state he won against George Bush in 2000.

Mrs Clinton continues to slide down the polls not just in Iowa – where a storm delayed her arrival at the weekend – but also in New Hampshire, where Mr Obama is now only seven points behind her, according to polls.

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